Chapter IX (3)

[Footnote 791: La Planche, 209, 210; La Place, 20; Hist. eccles., i. 138, 139; Crespin, Galerie chretienne, ii. 305-318; Forbes, State Papers, i. 185. The Memoires de Conde, i. 217-304, reprint entire a contemporary pamphlet entitled, "La vraye histoire, contenant l'inique jugement et fausse procedure faite contre le fidele serviteur de Dieu _Anne du Bourg_, conseillier pour le Roy, en la Cour du Parlement de Paris," etc. (Paris) 1561. It contains in full the interrogatories and replies, Du Bourg's confession, etc., and will amply repay a careful reading. It concludes with a pregnant sentence: "Voila l'issue et fin de l'histoire que j'avoye propose d'ecrire, _pour un commencement de beaucoup de troubles, guerres et divisions: car d'injustice procede tout mal_." Significant and prophetic words to be written and published the year before the outbreak of the first civil war! The editor of 1743, p. 217, well observes that the execution of Du Bourg may be regarded as one of the chief causes of the conspiracy of Amboise, which broke out soon after, and, consequently, of the troubles agitating France for nearly forty years.]

[Footnote 792: La Planche, 227-235; Hist. eccles., i. 153-155.]

[Footnote 793: There was no proof that Antoine Minard's murder was wrought by a Protestant hand. An address of Du Bourg, in which he reminded the unrighteous judge of the coming judgment of God, was, after the event, perversely construed as a threat of assassination. A Scotchman, Robert Stuart, a kinsman of the queen, was charged with firing the fatal pistol-shot, but even under the torture revealed nothing. Public opinion was divided, some attributing the catastrophe to Minard's well-known immorality ("d'autant," says La Planche, "qu'il y estoit du tout adonne, et qu'il ne craignoit de seduire toutes les dames et damoiselles qui avoyent des proces devant luy," etc.), others to his equally flagrant injustice, others still to the "Lutherans." La Planche, 233, 234.]

[Footnote 794: Not, as La Planche, 235, and the Hist. eccles., i. 154, state, Otho Henry, but his successor, Frederick III. Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 35, 36; Languet, Epistolae sec., ii. 36.]

[Footnote 795: So the English agents, Killigrew and Jones, wrote from Blois, Dec. 27, 1559: "Bourg was not executed, till about the xx of this present: who before his deathe made suche an oration to the Lords of the parliament, _as it moved as many of them as were there to shede teares_," Forbes, State Papers, i. 290.]

[Footnote 796: La Place, 22, 23; Crespin, Galerie chretienne, ii. 318-322.]

[Footnote 797: La Place, 23; Crespin, Galerie chretienne, ii. 322, 323; Hist. eccles., i. 155, 156; De Thou, ii. 700-703.]

[Footnote 798: La Planche, 236. "Inter quos," writes Jean Crespin in the colophon to the edition of his Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum of 1560, "egregie cordatus Dei Martyr Annas a Burgo supremae Parisiensis Curiae senator, xxiij. die mensis Decemb. anni M.D.LIX. admirabilem martyrii coronam accepit." In the preface dated Feb. 26th--two months after Du Bourg's death--he is styled "senator innocentissimus, integerrimus, sanctissimus."]

[Footnote 799: Florimond de Raemond, Historia de ortu, progressu, et ruina haesreseon hujus saeculi (Col. 1613), lib. vii, c. vi., p. 411. We have La Planche's testimony to the somewhat extraordinary statement that the judges themselves declared Du Bourg happy in suffering in behalf of so just a cause, and excused themselves for their own conduct by alleging the pressure of the Guises (p. 228). "Stulte fecerunt gubernatores Gallici, quod eum publice supplicio affecerunt," wrote Languet, a few months later; "ejus enim supplicium _est una ex non minimis causis horum tumultuum_." Epist. sec., ii, 47.]

[Footnote 800: Florimond de Raemond, ii. 410, 411. Let not the humane reader mistake. Policy, not pity, dictated toleration. The same Florimond de Raemond, presiding as the oldest counsellor, read an _arret_ of the Parliament of Bordeaux, not only ordering the disinterment of a child buried in the cemetery of Ozillac in Saintonge, but that of all the bodies of Huguenots that had been placed in any other cemetery within ten years. Plaintes des eglises reformees de France, etc., 1597; _apud_ Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., xi. (1862), 145.]

[Footnote 801: Compare La Planche, 242.]

[Footnote 802: The singular details of these trials, which strikingly illustrate the horrible corruption of the French judiciary in the sixteenth century, are given by La Planche, 242-245; Hist. eccles., i. 160-164; De Thou, ii. 703, 704; La Place, 24, who remarks upon the singularly different judgments in the five cases, and attributes the variety to the change in the state of the kingdom, and to the diversity of the interrogatories addressed to the prisoners. The sentences against Du Faur and De Foix were subsequently annulled and erased from the records of the parliament, on the ground of irregularity.]

[Footnote 803: De Thou, ii. 699; Agrippa d'Aubigne, Histoire universelle (Maille, 1616), i. 89.]

[Footnote 804: Recueil gen. des anc. lois franc. (July 23, 1359), xiv. 1; (Dec. 17th), xiv. 14; and (Aug. 5, 1560), xiv. 46.]

[Footnote 805: La Planche, 218. Cf. Histoire du tumulte d'Amboise.]

[Footnote 806: "In Gallia omnia sunt perturbatissima," wrote Languet (Jan. 31, 1560), "et scribitur esse omnino impossibile, ut res diu eo modo consistant." The Cardinal of Lorraine, he added, has dissipated the single church of Paris, but during this very period there have been established more than sixty churches in other parts of the kingdom; nor are the Genevese able to supply so many ministers as they are asked to furnish. Meantime many are defending themselves against the royal officers. The Gascons lately drove off the commissioners sent by the Parliament of Bordeaux to make inquisition for Lutherans. The same has happened in the district of Narbonne, not far from Marseilles. Epistolae sec., ii., pp. 32, 33.]

[Footnote 807: Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559 (Baum, ii., App., p. 3). Calvin, in his letters to Bullinger and Peter Martyr, both dated May 11, 1560, by the expression "eight months ago," points back to the same period. Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), Eng. tr., iv. 104-106.]

[Footnote 808: Beza, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 809: Calvin's Letters, iv. 107. So the ministers of Geneva declare before the council: "que pour les troubles arrives en France, ils n'en sont nullement coupables; qu'il ne doit pas etre inconnu au Conseil qu'ils ont detourne, autant qu'ils ont pu, d'aller a Amboise, ceux qu'ils ont sceu avoir quelque dessein d'y aller." Registers, Jan. 28, 1561, _apud_ Gaberel, Histoire de l'egl. de Geneve, i., pieces justif., 203.]

[Footnote 810: La Planche, 237.]

[Footnote 811: De Heu was a man of great influence. He had been _echevin_ at Metz, and the chief mover in introducing Protestantism into that city. In 1543 he invited Farel to come thither. Persecution drove him to Switzerland. He returned from exile upon the fall of Metz into the hands of the French, in 1552. When he found that the change had only aggravated the condition of the Protestants, he became prominent in the effort to enlist the sympathy and support of the German princes in behalf of the French reformation. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164.]

[Footnote 812: The whole affair remained involved in impenetrable obscurity until the recent fortunate discovery of the "Proces verbal" (or original minute) "de l'execution a mort de Caspar de Heu, S^r. de Buy" among the MSS. of the Bibliotheque Nationale, 22562, 1re partie, pp. 110-113. It is now printed in the Appendix to "Le Tigre," 103-108, and Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164-168. The very date (which proves to be Sept. 1, 1558) was previously unknown.]

[Footnote 813: "Ce pendant," says the royal lieutenant, in the interesting document just described, "aurions fait faire une fosse _dans les fosses du donjon dudit chasteau, soubz les arches du pont de la poterne_, comme nous semblant _lieu le plus cache et secret_ d'alentour dudit chasteau, d'autant que _l'on ne va souvent ny aysement esdits fossez, et que les herbes y sont communement grandes_," etc. Le Tigre, 108.]

[Footnote 814: The author of that terrible invective, "Le Tigre," reminds the cardinal of this crime in one of the finest outbursts of indignant reproach: "N'oys-tu pas crier le sang de celuy que tu fis estrangler dans une chambre du boys de Vincennes? S'il estoit coupable, que [pourquoi] n'a il este puny publiquement? Ou sont les tesmoingts qui l'ont charge? Pourquoy as-tu voulu en sa mort rompre et froisser toutes les loix de France, si tu pencoys que par les loix, il peut estre condemne?" Also in the _versified_ "Tigre," lines 315-326. It is only just to La Renaudie to add that, according to La Planche, those who knew him best acquitted him of the charge of being much influenced by these and other personal considerations. Hist. de l'estat de France, 238, 316-318.]

[Footnote 815: "Homme, comme l'on dit, de grand esprit, et de diligence presque incroyable." Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, in Recueil des choses memorables (1565), and Memoires de Conde, i. 324.]

[Footnote 816: According to De Thou, ii. 762, March 15th. So Davila, 22, and La Place, 33. Calvin (Letter to Sturm, March 23, 1560, Bonnet, iv. 91) says "before March 15." Castelnau, i. 6, says March 10th.]

[Footnote 817: The uniform statement of the contemporary authorities from whom our accounts of the "Tumult" are derived, is to the effect that the blow was to be struck at Blois, but that, on discovering their peril, the Guises hastily removed the court, for greater safety, to the castle of Amboise. And yet the correspondence of the English commissioners discloses the fact that the time of the removal had been decided upon on the 28th of January, several days before the Nantes assembly. See Ranke, Am. ed., 176. "The Frenche King, as it is said, the 5th of February removeth hens towardes Amboise; and will be fifteen dayes in going thither." Despatch of Killigrew and Jones, from Blois, January 28, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 315. In fact, the general outline of the royal progress was indicated by the Spanish ambassador, Perrenot Chantonnay, to Philip II., so far back as December 2, 1559: "La cour, lui avait-il ecrit, a le projet _de passer le cureme_ a Amboise, de se rendre en Guyenne au printemps, en passant par Poitiers, Bordeaux, Bayonne, d'aller ensuite a Toulouse, de demeurer l'hiver suivant en Provence et en Languedoc, et _d'agir vigoureusement contre les heretiques_." Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 419, from Simancas MSS. The Spanish ambassador saw so much that appalled him in the rapid progress of the Reformation in every part of France, that he feared alike for the North and the South, when the king was not present to check its growth.]

[Footnote 818: La Planche, 238, 239; Hist. eccles., i. 158, 159; De Thou, ii. 754-762 (where La Renaudie's harangue is given at length); Castelnau, liv. i., c. 8; Davila, 22; La Place, 33. Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 819: De Thou, ii. 762, 763.]

[Footnote 820: Castelnau, 1. i., c. 8; La Planche, 245, 246; Hist. eccl., i. 164; La Place, 33; De Thou, ii. 763. The Histoire du tumulte d'Amboise, _apud_ Recueil des choses memorables (1565), i. 5, and Mem. de Conde, i. 329, describes Des Avenelles as "prest de se donner a louage au premier offrant;" adding "estant ambitieux et necessiteux tout ensemble, il pensa avoir trouve le moyen pour se rendre riche et memorable a jamais." For a favorable view of Des Avenelles's motives, see De Thou, ii. 775. The 12th of February was the date when these tidings reached the Guises, as appears from the speech of Morage or Morague, sent in March to deliver to parliament for registry the edict of amnesty for past religious offences. Mem. de Conde, i. 337. The king, who had started on his hunting tour from Blois on the 5th of February, was, when the news came, between Marchenoir and Montoire (places north and northwest of Blois). The first intimations must, however, have been very vague and general, since, on the 19th of February, the Cardinal of Lorraine wrote to Coignet, French ambassador in Switzerland, directing him to set one or two persons to watch La Renaudie ("a la queue de la Regnaudie pour l'observer de loin, n'en perdre connaissance ni jour, ni nuit"), and seize him the moment he entered the French territories--evidently supposing him to be still in Switzerland and far from Amboise. Letter of Card. Lorraine from Montoire, Feb. 19, 1560, Imp. Lib. Paris, Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 420, 421. It was, doubtless, the receipt of more definite warnings that led the Guises to hasten the termination of the king's pleasure excursion. On the 22d of February, Francis arrived at Amboise, "which was two dayes sooner then was loked for." Throkmorton to the queen, Feb. 27, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 334.]

[Footnote 821: Castelnau, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 822: La Planche and Hist. eccles., _ubi supra_. I need not call attention to the gross absurdity into which Jean de Tavannes falls (Mem. ii. 260, 261), when he makes Catharine, through policy and hatred of Mary of Scots and of the Guises, whom the Scottish queen supported, favor the malcontents! Can the younger Tavannes have been misled by the hypocritical representations with which she once and again attempted ineffectually to deceive the reformers when they appealed to her to put an end to the persecutions?]

[Footnote 823: See the synopsis of Coligny's speech in La Planche, 247, 248. Tavannes ascribes Coligny's impunity throughout this reign to Catharine's interposition, revealing the plans of his enemies, etc. (Memoires, ii. 264). It was much more probably owing to his powerful family alliances, and particularly to the fear of throwing the weight of the enormous influence of his uncle, Constable Montmorency, into the opposite scale. Yet it must be confessed that Catharine displayed for the admiral, on more than one occasion, that respect which integrity always exacts from vice, and which is most likely to be manifested in the hour of danger. Early in this reign the court faction had endeavored to sow discord between the two principal men of the Protestant party, by intimating to Coligny that Conde was seeking to obtain the governorship of Picardy, which the former held. The calumny, however, failed of its object.]

[Footnote 824: Recueil des anc. lois franc, xiv. 22-24; La Planche, 248; La Place, 37; Hist. eccles., i. 166, 167; De Thou, ii. 764; Forbes, i. 877. A Latin version, but out of its chronological position in Languet, Epist. sec., ii. p. 15. The date of the publication of this important document at Paris is indicated in a letter of Hubert Languet: "Certum est _undecima Martii_ Lutetiae propositum esse edictum, in quo Rex condonat suis subditis quidquid hactenus peccatum est in religione." Epist. sec., ii. 44.]

[Footnote 825: "Car aucuns conseillers disoyent que c'estoit un attrape-minault." La Planche, 248.]

[Footnote 826: Beza to Bullinger, June 26, 1560; in Baum, ii., App. 13.]

[Footnote 827: Throkmorton's Correspondence in Forbes, State Papers, i. 353, 354, 374-378.]

[Footnote 828: Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, _ubi supra_; La Planche, 251, 252; La Place, 34, 35; De Thou, ii. 767, 768; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 8; Throkmorton to the queen, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 376, 377. Vieilleville, if we may credit Carloix, foresaw the impossibility of keeping his honor in this mission, and refused to take it. Mem. de Vielleville, ii. 420, etc.]

[Footnote 829: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 830: La Planche, 254; La Place, 35; De Thou, ii. 769; Davila, 25. Sir Nich. Throkmorton, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 380. M. Mignet has shown (Journal des Savants, 1857, 477, note) that the death of La Renaudie cannot have taken place before the evening of the 19th, or the morning of the 20th.]

[Footnote 831: Even in their letter to their sister, the Queen Dowager of Scotland (April 9, 1560), the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise had the assurance to speak of the affair of Amboise as "a conspiracy made to kill the king, in which we were not forgotten." Forbes, State Papers, i. 400.]

[Footnote 832: Cf. the commission in the Recueil des choses memorables (1565), 19-24; La Planche, 252, 253; De Thou, ii. 768; Davila, 24.; Agrippa d'Aubigne, liv. ii., c. 15.]

[Footnote 833: Recueil des anc. lois fr., xiv., 24-26; La Planche, 253, 254; Languet, ii. 48, 49; De Thou, ii. 769. It need scarcely be added that the aim of the insurgents is misrepresented to be, "under veil of religion, to ravage all the rich cities and houses of the kingdom."]

[Footnote 834: La Planche, 257, 262.]

[Footnote 835: "The 17th of this present there were twenty-two of these rebellis drowned in sacks, and the 18th of the same at night twenty-five more. Among all these which be taken, there be eighteen of the bravest captains of France." Throkmorton to the queen, March 21st, Forbes, i. 378.]

[Footnote 836: La Planche, 257, 263.]

[Footnote 837: Throkmorton, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 838: La Planche, 263, 265; La Place, 34, 35; Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, _apud_ Mem. de Conde, i. 327; D'Aubigne, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 839: Ibid., 254-258; La Place, 35; Hist. du tumulte, _ubi supra_; Throkmorton, _ubi supra_, i. 380.]

[Footnote 840: La Planche, 258.]

[Footnote 841: Memoires de Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne (Ed. Pantheon lit.), 472.]

[Footnote 842: La Planche, 267.]

[Footnote 843: I have followed in the text the account of La Planche. La Place, 36, represents Conde as voluntarily making his appearance and declaration before the king and the princes and knights that were present, on hearing that the ambassadors of several foreign princes had named him in their despatches as the author of the enterprise.]

[Footnote 844: La Planche, 268, 269; La Place, 36; Hist. eccles., i. 171; De Thou, ii. 773, 774; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 11. The Cardinal of Lorraine, however, was deeply mortified and vexed. "El cardenal estava presente teniendo los ojos en tierra, sin hablar palabra, mostrando solamente descontentemiento de lo que passava." MSS. Simancas, _apud_ Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 479.]

[Footnote 845: The accusation referred to occurs, for instance, in a private diary, part of which has recently come to light, begun by one Friar Symeon Vinot, Sept. 10, 1563. He notes: "L'an 1561 "--an error for 1560--"commenca a, s'elever en France la secte des Hugguenotz, ou (a mieulx dire) Eygnossen, pour ce qu'il [ils] vouloient fayre les villes franches, et s'allier ensemble, comme les villes des Schwysses, qu'on dict en allemand Egnossen, cest a dire Aliez," etc. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876) 380.]

[Footnote 846: Histoire du parlement de Bordeaux, depuis sa creation jusqu'a sa suppression (1541-1790), oeuvre posthume de C. B. F. Boscheron des Portes, president honoraire de la cour d'appel de Bordeaux, etc. (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 130.]